I've studied the film industry, both academically and informally, for 25 years and extensively written about it for the last five years. My outlets for film criticism, box office commentary, and film-skewing scholarship have included The Huffington Post, Salon, and Film Threat. Follow me at @ScottMendelson.

The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

It’s a little bizarre that we would call a 2.44x weekend multiplier “exceptional”, but horror films are of course famously front-loaded. Nonetheless, The Conjuring didn’t completely collapse over the weekend and as such set a new record for an original R-rated horror movie. The $20 million 70′s-set possession thriller earned a whopping $41.5 million over its debut frame. Among openings for anything that could reasonably be classified as “horror”, it trails only Paranormal Activity 3 ($52 million) and Hannibal ($58 million). If you want to count horror-tinged thrillers or horror sci-fi, toss in I Am Legend ($77 million), World War Z ($66 million), War of the Worlds ($64 million), Signs ($60 million), and The Village ($50 million) as among the few to have higher debuts in this genre. As for the “why”, this is a case of solid marketing, along with a series of word-of-mouth screenings starting with last months’ Los Angeles Film Festival that helped sell the film’s genuine quality.

I don’t usually put too much stock in Cinemascore rankings, but its “A-” score is worth noting compared to the “C” earned by The Purge or the “F” earned by The Devil Inside (the two previous record-setters for original R-rated horror debuts). People are walking away satisfied, which should count next weekend. The film was of course cheap enough that it didn’t have to set any box office records to be profitable, which also meant that the fact that a chunk of its core audience was in San Diego this weekend wasn’t really a problem, and it may in fact lead to a slightly lower second-weekend drop as a result. This debut is just a bit higher than Warner Bros’ Pacific Rim last weekend, but this film will actually be far more profitable than the $180 million robots vs. monsters adventure. People like to point to somewhat foregone successes like The Dark Knight Rises as proof of Warner’s marketing might, but its a debut like this that proves their worth.

As for long term prospects, the best case scenario is the somewhat leggy (for a horror film) run of Universal’s Mama this Spring. That film opened with $28 million and ended up with $71 million. A similar 2.53x multiplier would give The Conjuring $105 million, and surely Warner will push it over $100 million if it gets that close. The list of R-rated horror fare that crossed $100 million isn’t terribly long (The Exorcist, The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity 3, Paranormal Activity, Scream, Scream 2, Shutter Island, Interview With the Vampire, and Sleepy Hollow), so it’s no small potatoes if The Conjuring becomes the tenth to hit that milestone. But if it plays like a frontloaded horror film, we’re looking at a multiplier between 1.5x (Texas Chainsaw 3D) and The Purge (1.87x). That gives the film between $62 million and $78 million domestic. Either way, this is a massive win for Warner Bros. and further boosts director James Wan’s stock as he sets off to direct the seventh Fast & Furious film for next summer.

Turbo ended up with a slightly face-saving $31.2 million debut over its Wednesday-Sunday debut, with $21.5 million during the Fri-Sun weekend portion. It’s a lower debut than the $23m/$32m Thanksgiving debut of Rise of the Guardians yet surely will result in significantly less hand-wringing that that would-be disaster. Rise of the Guardians still made $300 million worldwide on a $145 million budget. If you’re Dreamworks, your stock plunges and you get lay-offs. If you’re Paramount, $300 million worldwide on a $150 million budget gets you a sequel to G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Go figure…

Anyway, this is still bad news as it’s Dreamworks Animation’s worst Fri-Sun debut since Flushed Away ($18 million) back in late 2006. The film, involving super-powered racing snail, was sold as a rip-off of Cars but is actually more of a rip-off of Ratatouille. It may do $300 million like Rise of the Guardians or it may do closer to $582 million like The Croods. Not likely, but a total approaching the $381 million cume of Monsters Vs. Aliens isn’t out of the question. What Turbo brings to the table is a potential mascot character, the kind of protagonist who can be sold as a stuffed animal and show up as part of a theme park attraction.

Red 2 played to its core older audience (67% over 35 years old, 52% male) and thus had a rare near-3x weekend multiplier for a $18.5 million opening frame. That’s below the $21 million of the first Reds three years ago, and I highly doubt that the poorly-received sequel will match the insanely leggy race to $90 million that the first film enjoyed. That’s unfortunate only in that the sequel cost $84 million, versus the original’s $58 million cost. I’ve long had an unofficial rule about spending more on your sequel than your original grossed in America, which Red 2 nearly breaks. Now Red 2 basically has to equal the $199 million worldwide gross of Red in order to break even, which is not smart sequel-budgeting.

But Lionsgate is better off this weekend than Universal, which has an all-time disaster on its hands with R.I.P.D.. The utterly terrible, hidden from critics, and $130 million-costing “Ghostbusters meets Men In Black” comic book adaptation earned just $12.7 million this weekend, along with $6.8 million in ten overseas markets, with no reason to presume it will have anything resembling legs. We’ve heard rumblings about this film’s troubled production for awhile, and sadly this time the buzz was true. If this were last summer, Universal would be in trouble. But this summer it just means less overall profits once the grosses for Fast & Furious 6 ($712 million worldwide), The Purge ($77 million worldwide), and Despicable Me 2 ($585 million worldwide) are counted up. Now maybe Hollywood will stop trying to turn Ryan Reynolds into a star and let him just be a (decent) actor again.

Speaking of Despicable Me 2, the film held well in weekend three, earning $25 million (-45%) and bringing its domestic cume to $276 million. Among end-of-week 3 totals, it’s behind Toy Story 3 ($289 million) and Shrek 2 ($314 million), but it’s well-ahead of Shrek the Third ($275 million) meaning it should finish its run over/under Finding Nemo‘s $339 million domestic total. It also has $584 million worldwide. Fruitvale Station expanded to 34 locations and grossed $242,272 for a $$21,832 per-screen average and a $1.33 million cume. It goes wider next weekend. Grown Ups 2 dropped 52% in weekend two for a $20 million frame and a $79.5 million cume. That’s actually a smaller drop (-53%) and a larger second weekend ($19 million) than the first Grown Ups, which bodes well for getting anywhere near the first film’ $162 million total.

Pacific Rim dropped 57% in weekend two, which wouldn’t be too terrible if it had opened larger last weekend. But a $15.9 million second weekend and a $68.2 million cume means that it’ll need massive overseas success to justify its $180 million budget. As of now, it’s playing exactly like Cowboys and Aliens, which dropped 56% in weekend two for a $15 million frame and a $67 million ten-day cume. Man Of Steel now has $285 million domestic and with a $1.8 million weekend, it will likely crawl to $290 million before leaving theaters. Monsters University now has just under $250 million domestic and $532 million worldwide. The Lone Ranger now has $147 million worldwide, which means it will likely match its $250 million production cost but not much more.

White House Down grossed $2.4 million this weekend for an unfortunate $68 million cume, while This Is The End now has $94 million domestic. World War Z has $186 million domestic and $456 million worldwide while The Heat grossed $9.3 million (down just 33% from last weekend) for a $129 million domestic cume. The Act of Killing earned $28,067 on a single screen. The ‘Sea World is evil!’ documentary Blackfish earned $60,000 on four screens . It’s a jolting piece of activist cinema and how I wish I hadn’t already bought a season pass for the year. Only God Forgives debuted on VOD and in theaters this weekend, earning $315,000 in those 78 auditoriums. Finally, The Way, Way Back earned $2.24 million on 304 screens for a $4.63 million cume.

That’s it for this weekend. Join us next frame when The Wolverine debuts in wide release while The To-Do List enters semi-wide release. I’ll hopefully have reviews of both over the court of the week. I have my thoughts on Comic Con, but for ‘as it happens’ coverage, go to Why So Blu?. In the meantime, check out the pieces I wrote this week via the sidebar on the right.

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